Thursday, July 30, 2015

Energy Efficiency and Nigeria's Power Puzzle

NIGERIA’s intractable
electricity crisis is legendary and is quite indicative of our low performing
economy. It is a well known fact that Africa’s biggest democracy runs an
economy that has been on “life support” for the greater part of the last three
decades even as smaller and poorer countries around the world refer to it as a
“Diesel Generator Economy”. This Nigerian economy on life support is ironically
being fed with millions of tones of the oxides of carbon daily with huge
consequences for the health of the citizens. Our land has become a destination
of choice for all manner of micro and macro electricity generators and the
smart Chinese guys are all smiling to the bank while the average Nigerian bears
the burden of running his own Independent Power Project (IPP). The reality of Nigeria of today
is that every individual, organization, institution, church, mosque etc
maintains an IPP. This is where renewable energy and energy efficiency
come to the rescue for several reasons!

First and foremost, renewable
energy and energy efficiency represent important tools if we truly really want
to expand access to electricity services nationwide which is consistent with
the National Economic Empowerment Development Strategy (NEEDS) and Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs) benchmarks aimed at stimulating rural economic
empowerment, employment creation and poverty reduction.

The second reason is that rural
electricity access in Nigeria oscillates between 10-15% which makes renewable
energy a veritable alternative to plug the gap because by their nature, renewable
electricity technologies are generally modular and are ideal options for
improving rural electricity access in the country. Grid power extensions
over long distances to serve low load densities amount to monumental economic
waste because of the financial implications involved in procuring and
installing transmission/distribution equipment that cover thousands of
kilometres. I make bold to ask this one question: who bears the costs of power
losses incurred in getting people in Calabar to enjoy electricity generated at
Kainji Dam in Niger State? Decentralized and localized grids are quite
compatible with renewable electricity. Third reason is that renewable
electricity provides the much needed flexibility and diversity for improving
the reliability of electricity supply – potentially important in ensuring the
stability of grid electricity supply, especially in times of localized
disruption of sources of power supply as a result of vandalization or natural
disasters. For renewable electricity to be part of the national power planning
process, policy guidelines must provide a robust framework to integrate
non-fossil fuel based electricity into the energy technology mix in meeting
national electricity generation and supply needs. The Electric Sector
Reform Master plan (ESRM) recently launched by President Goodluck Jonathan
should provide veritable and unique opportunities to scale up access to
electricity services nationwide if it is deepened and vigorously pursued in a
way that would enable Nigeria and Nigerians to align and mainstream renewable
energy development in the country with broader national development
aspirations.

However, in the pursuit of
these objectives, the implementation of the policy on renewable electricity
should be in collaboration with other levels of government and the private
sector in a way that encourages citizen and community ownership of the whole
value chain. Reducing the amount of energy consumed by households in Nigeria is
a key missing link in our effort to solve the power puzzle. Interestingly, the
present administration seems to be catching on with the trend globally with the
setting up of a national committee on Demand Side Energy Management headed by
Engr. Chidi Ike, a dynamic, experienced and proactive professional who
understands the terrain. Engr. Ike and members of his committee have so far
demonstrated exceptional commitment and patriotism in pursuit of the task at
hand. Credit must also be given to Prof. Barth Nnaji, Nze Akachukwu Nwankpo and
other members of the Presidential Task Force on Power for their doggedness and
determination to creatively tackle the hydra headed electricity problem with
some out-of-the-box measures – the DSM is one of such.

For a population of over 150
million people in Nigeria, the Power Holding Company of Nigerian (PHCN) like
other utility companies in Africa is facing difficulties to match the ever
increasing quantum of electricity demand. While PHCN expects to augment its
productive capacity by more than 1,000 MW per year, this increase is expected to
barely keep up with the growth in demand from households and businesses. Within
this context, the promotion of large scale, concrete, national energy
efficiency programme through a critical demand side management initiative to
reduce the energy consumption of selected major end-use appliances especially
lighting.

With Nigeria accounting for
about 25% of the population of sub-Saharan Africa, the proposed Demand Side
Management and Energy Conservation initiative will have a significant impact on
addressing the inevitable growth of electricity consumption in the region while
contributing to greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction. Electricity Stakeholders
believe that the expected energy efficiency policy and legislation framework
will set in motion a target specific process of strong public-private
partnership among local manufacturers, importers and consumers of end-use
equipment by creating the appropriate market mechanism with the right
incentives to improve energy efficiency at the national, regional and local levels.
It is critical that the government does not lose sight of the bigger picture of
citizen participation and ownership of this all important DSM initiative.

Quick-win initiatives are good
as long as they create opportunities for more meaningful citizens’ engagement
with the issue in order to avoid the danger of people unwittingly cranking up
the energy in other areas of their lives. Previously well-intended initiatives
had failed due to the simple reason of not carrying the citizens along by way
of massive education and enlightenment of the citizens. People can be nudged
into making a specific change, but to adopt a low-carbon, low energy lifestyle,
they need to think about it for themselves if they know what they are to
benefit from the scheme in Naira and Kobo terms, hence the need to engage
extraordinary and multi-disciplinary platforms to educate and enlighten the
Nigerian citizens on the imperatives of Demand Side Management, Energy
Efficiency and Conservation.

The success of innovative initiatives like the DSM
rests to a large extent on citizen education and enlightenment especially in
making a business case for corporations, companies and individuals to adopt and
embrace such. People appreciate novel
initiatives like the DSM if they are able to see real economic gains derivable
from such programmes of government. Opportunities for reducing energy demand
are numerous in all sectors and many are low-cost habits that most corporate
entities and individuals could adopt in the short term while measures would be
introduced to influence behavioural changes in favour of energy efficiency in
the long term. The experience of the University of Zambia is quite instructive.
Faced with over $1 million in unpaid electricity bills owed the Zambian
Electric Service Corporation (ZESCO), the University recently decided to
undertake an energy audit aimed at reducing their use of energy while opening
up cost saving channels. $1 million is a colossal sum of money, which the
financial status of the university cannot sustain such high consumption of
electricity.

The advantages of energy
efficiency to the university were indeed very significant as the financial
savings could be channeled to more needy sections in the university. Also, at
the turn of the millennium in the United States, 459 large electricity
utilities implemented DSM programmes that saved them about 50.6 billion
kilowatt hours (kWh) of energy generation. According to the best
conservative estimates, the city of New York alone has the potential to reduce
demand by 1,300 MW (2002) through DSM.

Indeed, most African countries
that have succeeded with the DSM had adopted strategies to educate their
citizens to see real economic gains in monetary terms at the individual,
corporate and national levels. Several African countries like Kenya, Tanzania,
Uganda, Ethiopia, Libya, Ghana and South Africa who have used the DSEM had
tapped into the huge resource base of the private sector in their countries as
a vehicle to reach out to their citizens in a bid to cover all aspects of the
problem and come out with solutions that are holistic, participatory and
demand-driven in approach; bestowing on the communities direct control of
their lives and environment by largely driving the initiative along with
in-built incentivized mechanism that guarantees its success. A good
example is South Africa that saved 31.09 MW in 2004 by implementing two
separate lighting projects using energy efficient lighting technologies.

From the foregoing, it is clear
that DSM has a major role to play in deferring high investments in generation,
transmission and distribution networks thereby providing significant economic,
social and environmental benefits. This represents triumph of the triple bottom
lines for all stakeholders by “generating” electricity from the consumer
(demand side) instead of PHCN (supply side)!

Stanley Igwebuike Ijeoma
is Africa’s foremost Enviropreneur and freelance climate change communicator.
This article was first published by the Guardian Newspapers Nigeria in June 2011.